Cart - Add a shipping rates calculator to your cart

Store Design

Topic summary

Tutorial Overview:
This advanced tutorial explains how to add a shipping rates calculator to Shopify cart pages, allowing customers to estimate shipping costs before checkout. The implementation differs between sectioned (newer) and non-sectioned (pre-October 2016) themes.

Key Features & Limitations:

  • Works with carrier-calculated and manual rates
  • Uses customer’s default address if logged in
  • Only functions on cart page (not cart drawer/popup)
  • Does not calculate taxes
  • Currently incompatible with Shopify Plus multi-currency stores
  • Rates are approximations based on country/province/zip code only

Implementation Issues Reported:

  • Most common problem: Calculator displays but “Calculate Shipping” button doesn’t work—shows “Calculating…” then returns to default state without results
  • JavaScript conflicts: Many users report the code breaks other theme functionality (predictive search, quantity updates, menu navigation)
  • Theme compatibility: Particularly problematic with Simple, Debut, and Supply themes
  • Multi-currency: Calculator displays wrong currency symbol without conversions

Workarounds & Solutions:

  • Some users successfully placed JavaScript in theme.liquid before </body> tag instead of vendor.js/theme.js
  • Third-party apps like “Shipping Rates Calculator” by Code Black or “In-Cart Shipping Rates” offer paid alternatives ($6.99/month)
  • Community debate exists about whether showing shipping costs pre-checkout reduces abandoned carts or prevents email capture

Current Status:
Many users remain unable to implement the free solution successfully. The tutorial appears outdated for newer themes like Dawn 4.0, with ongoing requests for updated documentation or native Shopify integration.

Summarized with AI on November 6. AI used: claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929.
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After some thought, I decided to remove the calculator completely for now. My reasoning is that there is a reason why Shopify cart and checkout is set up like this.

Shipping charges are an extra hurdle that can deter some customers, some customers are likely to drop off after finding out the charges.
If you inform a new customer before they begin checkout you will never receive their details to re-engage them after they drop off (aka, you never get their email).

This is probably why Shopify checkout asks customers to fill in their email and details before proceeding to the shipping choice page.
Customers who drop off due to shipping can be re-engaged with an abandoned cart email, you can even then offer free shipping or a discount to try to rewin the sale.

Adding a shipping estimate before checkout breaks the flow designed by Shopify to get details of customers allowing abandoned carts to be won.